Page 119 of Necessary Cruelty

“No idea.” My voice is breezy, even as I feel a stab of pain in the pit of my stomach. “Jake was drunk.”

But I have condoms in my purse that I grabbed from Vin’s bedroom. I didn’t have any idea where the night would lead us, and I wanted to be prepared.

That’s almost laughable if what Jake said is true.

While Amelia frantically asks what I’m doing, I rifle through my bag for the condoms. I hold one up to the light and squint at it. In the very center of the outlined circle is a tiny hole in the foil, only visible when it catches in the light.

A hole that is the exact size and shape of a safety pin.

Amelia’s face is pinched with worry. “When was the last time you had your period?”

My periods have never been regular. Thank stress, intermittent starvation, or just plain old body chemistry, but I’m not in the habit of bothering to keep track of them. I’ve gone months in between before, so the delay isn’t something I would normally worry about. “I’m not sure, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

She bites her lip. “There’s a drug store right down the street. I can be back in five minutes.”

“No, really…”

But Amelia is already heading resolutely for the door. “Five minutes, okay. Don’t move.”

It actually takes seven for her to get back. I know that because I find myself counting every second as I stare at the floral-patterned wall. The pregnancy test comes in a little box that should rip apart easily under my fingers, but I struggle to get it open because my hands are shaking.

Amelia waits in the other room while I hover over the toilet to pee on the little stick.

It only takes another minute or so for my fate to be sealed.

Two little pink lines waver in my vision as I struggle not to pass out.

The bathroom door bangs open and crashes against the far wall. I don’t need to look up to see who it is. His presence sucks all of the air out of the room until I find it impossible to breathe.

“Why am I pregnant?”

The expression on his face is all the confirmation I need of his guilt. He doesn’t seem surprised as he stares down at me.

Just resigned.

Amelia peers at me over his shoulder, expression puggish like she is more than willing to manhandle him out of the room if necessary.

Vin doesn’t so much as glance back at her. “Because I needed to be sure that I would get what I want.”

I wrack my brain for an explanation for this that makes the glittering future I imagined still even remotely possible. But the only one that makes sense to me is the one in which Vin Cortland is a selfish piece of shit who has been playing me this entire time.

“And that’s all that has ever mattered to you, isn’t it? Getting what you want. My feelings have never been on the radar.” I feel a sensation like my body is dropping over a cliff. The ground is rushing up to meet me, but there won’t be any waking up from this nightmare just before I hit the ground. “You could have chosen anyone for this. Why would you do this to me?”

“It had to be you,” he admits. “I can’t inherit anything unless I marry a daughter from a Founding family. You were my only option. And you have to be pregnant within a year, or my inheritance disappears.” He sees the look on my face, and more words rush out. “That’s how it started, but this has all become so much more than that. I was only doing what I thought I had to do. I’ve never lied to you about anything else.”

Vin has always hated me. It would take a complete moron to think he was capable of feeling anything else where I’m concerned. It was only a matter of time before we went right back to being enemies.

I muster all of the bravado that I don’t feel. “What if I had just gotten rid of it?”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Vin reaches out to stroke my cheek, and I pull away before he can touch me. If I let him touch me, then I might let him convince me that he hasn’t been laughing at my naivety for the last two months. “You would do yourself in before you harmed an innocent baby.”

The sense of despair that washes over me is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Darkness creeps in on the edges of my vision, a tide threatening to pull me out to sea. Even when I realized that my mother had no intention of ever coming back or that the first time Grandpa forgot my name wouldn’t be the last, nothing compared to this.

Staring into Vin’s pinched face, I realize that I still love him. Desperately.

And he will only ever see me as a means to an end.

I would rather die than feel this way for even one more minute.

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